"A cottage, a hut, with you--with you," said I, in a cadence that I defy Macready to rival--"what is worldly splendour, or the empty glitter of rank." I here glanced at my epaulettes, upon which I saw her eyes rivetted. "Isn't the ginger beer beautiful," said she, emptying a glass of champagne. Still I was not to be roused from my trance, and continued my courtship as warmly as ever. "I suppose you'll come home now," said a gruff voice behind Mary Anne. I turned and perceived Mark Anthony with a grim look of peculiar import. "Oh, Mark dear, I'm engaged to dance another set with this gentleman." "Ye are, are ye?" replied Mark, eyeing me askance. "Troth and I think the gentleman would be better if he went off to his flea-bag himself." In my then mystified intellect this west country synonyme for a bed a little puzzled me. "Yes sir, the lady is engaged to me: have you any thing to say to that?" "Nothing at present, at all," said Mark, almost timidly. "Oh dear, oh dear," sobbed Mary Anne; "they're going to fight, and he'll be killed--I know he will." For which of us this fate was destined, I stopped not to consider, but amid a very sufficient patting upon the back, and thumping between the shoulders, bestowed by members of the company who approved of my proceedings. The three fiddles, the flute, and bassoon, that formed our band, being by this time sufficiently drunk, played after a fashion of their own, which by one of those strange sympathies of our nature, imparted its influence to our legs, and a country dance was performed in a style of free and easy gesticulation that defies description. At the end of eighteen couple, tired of my exertions--and they were not slight --I leaned my back against the wall of the room, which I now, for the first time, perceived was covered with a very peculiar and novel species of hanging--no less than a kind of rough, green baize cloth, that moved and floated at every motion of the air. I paid little attention to this, till suddenly turning my head, something gave way behind it. I felt myself struck upon the back of the neck, and fell forward into the room, covered by a perfect avalanche of fenders, fire-irons, frying-pans, and copper kettles, mingled with the lesser artillery of small nails, door keys, and holdfasts. There I lay amid the most vociferous mirth I ever listened to, under the confounded torrent of ironmongery that half-stunned me. The laughter over, I was assisted to rise, and having drank about a pint of vinegar, and had my face and temples washed in strong whiskey punch--the allocation of the fluids being mistaken, I learned that our host, the high sheriff, was a celebrated tin and iron man, and that his salles de reception were no other than his magazine of metals, and that to conceal the well filled shelves from the gaze of his aristocratic guests, they were clothed in the manner related; which my unhappy head, by some misfortune, displaced, and thus brought on a